Stilbenes, Conioids, and Other Polyaryl Natural Products

The various types of wood extractives that will be discussed in this section are structurally very different from one another and are not closely related from a biogenetic point of view. The only common feature is that their structures incorporate two or more aryl groups and that they do not belong to any of the other classes of compounds described in this book. The classes of natural products to be presented are  

Many of the compounds are rather common and are widely distributed among woody plants. However, they rarely occur in abundant quantities. Some of the compounds possess significant biological properties - e.g. they contribute to the resistance of plants to disease, pest insects, or grazing and foraging animals. The roles that many of the compounds play in the plants are, however, to a large extent unknown. None of the compounds included in this section has commercial use, but some of them contribute to the properties of the wood and influence the properties and the processing of forest products. 

Stilbenes, Conioids, and Other Polyaryl Natural Products 513 

The stilbenes are widely distributed among plants. They often co-occur with flavanoids, which are related to the stilbenes on biogenetic grounds. The structures and distribution of the stilbenes in woody plants are presented in Thble 7.4.1. 

A common oxygenation pattern of the natural stilbenes is the 3,5-dioxy substitution. Thus, the first natural stilbenes to be isolated from wood - pinosylvin and its monomethyl and dimethyl ethers-carry 3,5-dioxy substituents (35). 

---

Stilbenes, Conioids, and Other Polyaryl Natural Products 7.4.6 Miscellaneous Diaryl and Polyaromatic Compounds... 

---